In Farm BureauCounty rice promotions

ArFB’s Rice Division is again part-nering with the Arkansas Rice Council to offer the Arkansas Rice Promotion Program, which is designed to provide county Farm Bureaus the opportu-nity to conduct an organized rice promotion effort. A copy of the 2013 Rice Promotion Handbook is available online at www.arfb.com. Click on “Get Involved” and then “Contest and Promotions” to find it. The handbook offers helpful suggestions for plan-ning activities and important dates to remember.

The Miss Arkansas Rice Contest is part of the annual promotion effort. Entries for the state contest, sent by registered or certified mail, must be received in the Rice Council office by Apr. 30. The contest will be held on Aug. 10. Additional details are includ-ed in the rice promotion handbook.

Photo contestFarm Bureau members have

the opportunity to spotlight their creativity, their perception and their flair for the dramatic — or the comical or even the tragic — in Front Porch magazine’s fifth Rural Reflec-tions Photo Contest. This competi-tion offers amateur photographers the chance to explore the many activities, seasons, triumphs, disap-pointments and faces of agriculture, our state’s key industry. The photos

that win this competition will cap-ture the image and spirit of agricul-ture, and Farm Bureau, in Arkansas.

The contest includes two divi-sions, High School (ages 14–18) and Adult (19 and older). The winner of each receives $250. In addition, one entry will receive a grand prize of $500. The winners and honor-able mentions may have their works published, with credit, in Front Porch

March 28, 2013 • Vol. 16, No. 6A

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Searcy fire fighter Bryon Jones found himself waist-deep in rice during Arkansas Farm Bureau’s grain bin safety training program in Brinkley on March 14. Jones portrayed a grain-engulfment accident victim. Those portraying rescuers surrounded him with a Res-Q tube used to protect victims during extraction. During the day-long event, more than 200 farmers and first responders from 14 counties learned important life-saving techniques from Grain Systems Incorporated trainers.

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toLocal 4-h dairy foods Con-

test participants shared recipes and desserts with Crawford Co. FB board members and guests

March 7. Attending were (back row, l to r) Women’s Com-mittee members Stephanie

Graham and Sue Figley, Kaitlyn Burcham, Ethan Williams,

Miranda Newton, President Randy Arnold; (front row) Liam

Stidham, Kayla Jo Breeden, Elizabeth Gregory, Aaron Mc-Collough and Thane Stidham.

and Arkan-sas Agriculture magazines, on

Farm Bureau’s website, arfb.com, and in other publications. For complete rules, visit www.arfb.com, and click on “Get Involved” and “Rural Re-flections Photo Contest.”

Young farmers’ concerns identifiedSecuring adequate land to grow

crops and raise livestock was the top challenge identified in the lat-est survey of participants in the American Farm Bureau Federation’s Young Farmers & Ranchers program. That challenge was identified by 20 percent of respondents, followed by burdensome government regulations and “red tape,” which was identified by 15 percent of the young farmers and ranchers responding.

“Access to adequate land to begin farming or expand an established operation is a major concern for today’s young farmers,” said Zach Hunnicutt, AFBF’s national YF&R Committee chairman and a crop farmer from Nebraska. “Another major challenge we all face, in one form or another, is the cost of com-plying with a maze of government regulations.”

Other issues ranked as top con-cerns included economic challenges, particularly profitability, 12 percent; water availability, 10 percent; taxes,

9 percent; health-care availability and cost, 9 percent; availability of farm labor and related regulations, 8 percent; and willingness of parents to turn over the reins of the farm or ranch, 7 percent.

In ArkansasAg mag available online

The Arkansas Agriculture Depart-ment’s new annual magazine “Ar-kansas Grown,” a guide to the state’s

“farms, food and forestry,” is now available online at http://farmflavor.com/us-ag/arkansas/. The magazine is the first of its kind by the state agency. It will help market Arkansas agriculture and be used to educate the public about the importance of agriculture in the Natural State. The magazine also has been printed for distribution throughout the state. Arkansas Farm Bureau is an adver-tiser in the magazine.

ElsewhereAg reports suspended

USDA’s National Agricultural Sta-tistics Service is suspending a num-ber of statistical surveys and reports for the remainder of the fiscal year due to reduced funding caused by sequestration. In a March 12 press release, NASS stated, “The decision to suspend these reports was not made lightly, but it was neverthe-less necessary, given the funding situation.” The reports suspended are: all catfish and trout reports, including catfish feed deliveries and catfish processing; July cattle report; potato stocks reports; all non-citrus fruit, nut and vegetable forecasts and estimates; June rice stocks report; all hops and hops stocks estimates; mink report; milk pro-duction reports, including produc-

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Nine-year-old anna dooley (left), a member of the Community Kids 4-H Club, won “best overall” for a garment she made for the local 4-H Fashion Review in Magnolia on March 14. Members of the Colum-bia Co. FB Women’s Committee, including Deborah Reynolds who presented Anna’s sewing machine prize, served as contest judges.

Martha Jo Collins (center), a member service representative with Ashley Co. FB, presented awards to winners in the first- through third-grade category of the county’s ag in the Classroom poster contest. Diego Martinez (left) won first place and Andrew Jernigan (right) won second place. Both boys attend school in Hamburg.

On March 1, Shirley High School nutrition students (l to r) Ashley Paden, Ivree Johnson, Lexi Parker and Alicia Pugh partnered with Clin-ton Thriftway grocery store manager Tom Hogan to share information about healthy eating with the store’s customers.The Van Buren Co. FB Women’s Committee facilitated the event to promote food Check-out week.

(l to r) Washington Co. FB agency manager Vince Massanelli, Sen. Uvalde Lindsey, Rep. Charlie Collins, Rep. Bob Ballinger and county leg-islative committee chairman Roger Pitts posed for a snapshot at the county’s legislative appreciation breakfast on Feb. 16 in Fayetteville.

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tion, disposition and income; June on- and off-farm stocks for Austrian winter peas, chickpeas, dry peas and lentils; and July acreage forecasts for Austrian winter peas, dry edible peas and lentils.

Good news for catfish farmersThe U.S. Commerce Department

announced results of a catfish indus-try review showing Vietnam catfish will now face fair antidumping duties when imported into the domestic U.S. market. The U.S. catfish indus-try, along with Southern legislators, welcomed the move following years of the Commerce Department assign-ing a near-zero antidumping duty on

Vietnamese catfish. This practice, accord-ing to U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, has led to unfair competition and a flood of Viet-namese imports.

“For too long, the Arkansas catfish in-dustry has faced unfair

competition from non-market econo-mies such as Vietnam,” Crawford said. “I am pleased to hear that the Com-merce Department heeded my call to assign a fairer price calculation to the

value of Vietnamese catfish. This is a win for the U.S. catfish industry and the Delta region in the First District of Arkansas. I am confident that the Commerce Department’s decision to fairly enforce our trade laws is a great first step toward a U.S. catfish indus-try recovery that will create jobs and grow the Delta economy.”

Since 2008, Vietnamese imports of catfish fillets have tripled and have taken nearly 80 percent of the do-mestic market. Over the past decade, Arkansas has seen more than half of catfish farming water acres disappear, partly because of competition with Vietnam, among other non-market economies.

Pryor, Boozman back farmersOn March 8, both of Arkansas’

U.S. senators were part of a group that introduced a bill to amend the Environmental Protection Agency’s Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) Rule and ease regulatory compliance for farms. U.S. Sens. Mark Pryor and John Boozman, along with fellow senators James Inhofe, Deb Fischer, Thad Cochran and Mike Johanns, are backing the bill.

“The EPA’s proposed fuel storage rules would force thousands of farm-ers to pay for costly infrastructure

projects, along with an extensive inspection and certification process they simply don’t need,” Pryor said. “Our bipartisan, common-sense bill would exempt small farms from this regulatory overreach to save them millions in unneeded costs.”

“The EPA is continuing its assault on America’s farms with another excessive regulation that would be costly to our nation’s agri-business-es,” Boozman said. “This legisla-tion will prevent Arkansas farmers and ranchers from having to spend money on equipment just to comply with another extreme regulation.”

Under EPA’s plan, farmers who have oil and gas tanks on their farms will be required to hire a certified professional engineer to design a SPCC plan, just like major oil refin-eries. They also may be required to purchase new capital equipment to comply with the rule.

This bill will exempt farmers from these regulations for above-ground oil storage tanks that have an ag-gregate storage capacity of less than 10,000 gallons and allow farmers who are regulated and have less than 42,000 gallons of above-ground storage capacity to self certify their own plans. This will dramatically decrease costs. Editor

Keith Suttonkeith.sutton@arfb.com

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Students from the university of arkansas at monticello School of ag-riculture attended the regular session of the 89th General Assembly at the Capitol in Little Rock on March 5 with their professors, Dr. Paul Francis (second from right) and Dr. Bob Stark (sixth from right).

Rep. Jeff Wardlaw (left) and ArFB state board member Gene Pharr, a poultry grower from Lincoln, testi-fied for HB 1039, a bill to create a sales tax exemption for utilities used in agricultural facilities, dur-ing a house tax and revenue Committee hearing March 14. Ninety-four representatives passed the tax cut, which could provide a $10 million tax savings to the state’s poultry and livestock producers.

Crawford

ContACt•Gene Martin (501) 228-1330,

gene.martin@arfb.com•Brandy Carroll (501) 228-1268,

brandy.carroll@arfb.com•Bruce Tencleve (501) 228-1856,

bruce.tencleve@arfb.com•Matt King (501) 228-1297,

matt.king@arfb.com

In the MarketAs of March 26, 2013

SoYBEAnS continue to trade in the same pattern that started last fall. Old-crop May has generally moved in a range between $15 and $13.50, with a couple of sessions dipping slightly lower. Everyone assumed export sales would shift to South America, and with a big crop being harvested, that will be the case. However, logistical problems – moving from harvest point, to elevators, to shipping points – have been a nightmare. Pictures of 30- to 40-mile truck lines and hundreds of ships waiting to load are common. This has tempered downside pressure, and keeps the market trading sideways. New crop is trading a little tighter, between $13.50 and $12.50, with the market lingering near the low side as planting projections rise. The average pre-report estimate is 78.4 million acres, up from 77.2 million acres last year. Stocks are projected around 930 million bushels. If either plantings or stocks are off the mark on Thursday, that will give the market direction.

CoRn has been fairly firm recently, but remains range-bound like soybeans. Old-crop support starts around $6.80, with $7.50 offering long-term resistance. Stocks are expected to be near or slightly below 5 billion bushels, the smallest in 15 years. Planting estimates have ranged as high as 99 million acres, but the pre-report average has dropped to 97.33 million acres, just 170,000 acres above 2012. This provided oxygen to the December contract that, just three weeks ago, dipped well below established support at $5.50 and appeared ready to decline further. The market reversed and rallied above $5.70 and could push toward $5.90 if planting intentions fall below the above-mentioned acreage.

WHEAt is showing renewed strength after July futures sunk to $6.86 in the first week of March. The rally has stalled around $7.30 the last several days and needs to close above resistance at $7.52 to indicate a change in trend direction. The market needs fresh demand news to give it a boost. Crop conditions are “less than good,” with Kansas reporting 31 percent of the crop “poor to very poor” and just 29 percent “good to excellent.” Some areas of the plains will need more moisture to finish the crop.

Cotton futures have given back a good portion of the 12-cent old-crop gain that started on Feb. 28. Strong yarn demand spurred the upturn, which was throttled by reports that China and India would release state-owned stocks. May futures fell 8 cents in a week, finally finding support around 86 cents. That is near the top of a breakaway chart gap that extended the initial upturn. New-crop December was unable to move through resistance just above 89 cents. That may have been because of the perception that acreage for 2013 had been pulled away from corn and beans. The pre-report survey averaged just more than 10 million acres, but ranged from 9 to 11 million acres. The National Cotton Council survey that was released in early February showed just more than 9 million acres. The mid-south was projected to drop plantings by more than 50 percent, to just more than 1 million acres. Have plans changed that much?

RICE futures continue a week-long rally that follows a five-week decline of $2.17. May futures peaked at $16.67 on Feb. 8 and bottomed at $14.50 on March 15. That doesn’t reflect a market that has shown strong domestic demand and good milled- and rough-rice export demand. Investment funds appear to have moved from commodities to other areas, while huge intervention stocks in Thailand hover over the world market. With U.S. long-grain stocks tightening, the soon-to-be-answered question is how this will impact 2013 plantings.

April live CAttLE futures have begun to consolidate above the recently charted contract low of $124.65. The market needs to close above resistance at $127 to build any upward momentum. Feeders are attempting to consolidate as well, with April support at the contract low of $136.80. Product prices continue to weaken and, as a result, packer demand is being described as “cautious.”

Technically, HoG futures are looking a whole lot better than they did about a week ago. June has climbed to its highest level since early March. The market needs to move above resistance at $92, though, to indicate another leg up. Pork values have improved and should continue to as demand increases through Easter and beyond. The holiday-shortened week will help with that, as it means there will be less pork available.

In PoULtRY, commercial hatcheries in the 19-state weekly program set 200 million broiler-type eggs in incubators during the week ending March 16. This was up 1 percent from the number set the corresponding week a year earlier. Average hatchability for chicks hatched during the week was 84 percent.Broiler growers in the 19-state weekly program placed 165 million chicks for meat production during the week ending March 16, also up 1 percent from the comparable week a year earlier.